FIFTY YEARS HENCE. FUTURE OF MAIN TRUNK.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 151, 26 June 1912, Page 13

FIFTY YEARS HENCE. FUTURE OF MAIN TRUNK.

POSSIBILITIES AND POTENTIAL!- • TIES. Ifc is pleasant oti sonic fine autumn morning for the old settler to look out from hia verandah over the boa of bush beyond tho immediate clearing round tho homestead and dream of what that great country before him may be fifty years hence, when he ia dead and gone. So must many of the old pioneers nave mused in their few intervals of leisure when they looked out and saw all the world before them— how little done, how much to do. What would they have thought had they seen the New Zealand

of _ to-day — tho ,u,rcat .cities, the nobl« buildings, the busy ktrects, the electric trams, tho motor-cars, and, over tho country that was kut>h in their day, prosperous farms, cultivated gardens, humming factories, rich orchards, metalled loads, and all the visible signs of a high material progress ! Would they have believed their eyes— that in so brief a time a country could bo 60 completely changed? » THE NEW LAND. So with the land of the Main Trunk. In many respects it is the counterpart of vast areas of tho North Island once virgin forest, now long fcetlled-— the Forty-Mile Bush, the Seventy-Mile Bush. South Taranaki, tho Matiawata, and Horowhenua, even of the more anctenfc Hutt Valley, when our forefathers first landed seventy odd years ago. 'Will th« process of evolution be the same? Shall wo Bee" in the WaimaTino of, say, 1962, what we see in the Mauawatu of 1912? Time alone can tell. We aro in a now age with, new methods, and tho process of civilisation proceeds at a greater pace nowadays, with, all tho instruments ©1 modern progress to hand, than it did in the early days of New Zealand. Taihape is nob twenty years old, Ohakune is not tetij and the other timber towns of th« Watmarino from Raurimu to Piriaka are .younger still. In tho early day« it was only a gold rush that could build a place so quickly. The natural process of evolution was much, slower. Account must bo taken of the new forces in the power of man to-day. THE FOREST MUST' GO. On© thiiif? is certain: the forest ia doomed. With tho exception of a, few areas of reserve there will not be much native bush left fifty years hence. There ar© many mills cutting into it now at a great rate, and the final clearance will probably be as nearly complete a-s it is in Taranaki. Still, it will be a long time before the sawmill has done with the country. So far there does not appear to be much impression made. But the area of clearing will spread with the settlers to help with tlie uneconomic felling and burning of the bush. For many years, however, timber will be the main output of the Main Trunk country. Some people aver there will never be such another crop off the soilthat with the timber goes the real value of the Mam Trunk land. It may be bo, but the gradually unfolding process of settlement in the direction of agriculture even now shows that tho soil is quite capable of feeding a big population. WHAT SCIENCE MAY DO. Immediately round the central boss of Ruapehu there is probably never likely to be much purely agricultural settlement. Tho winter climate isverv sovere^and when tho bush is down it fs certain to Be severer Btill. Yet tho land will grow good root crops, and with these and summer hay, tho cycle of paßturago and stock-feeding could bo proserved intact. Round Raelihi already, there is a considerable amount of dairying, justifying tho establishment and maintenance of a factory in tho town. Certainly conditions appear to* be no worse than they are round tho foot of Egmont, which, moreover, has the disadvantage! of wild westerly winds. The great upland plains round Ruapehu will continue to carry more and more sheep, and grasses, may be discovered

I that will thrive in the pumice, and give far better pasturage than the all-present tussock. No science is progressing like that of agriculture, and it , would be strange if after enabling wheat to be grown almost under the midnight Bun, it has nothing to cover pumice land. A NATIONAL PLAYGROUND. There is another aspect of the mountain. That the Tongariro Natural Park will become a great playground for the people of the southern seas is one of the tacts of the future ib is almost safe to guarantee. Winter sports, such as are in vogue on Mt. Kosciusko in Australia will come in here, tod, with even better success. The National Park I would be ideal for the new sport of ski-ing, for it has great spaces of snow j slopes where the art might be practised to perfection. So one may, imagine in the future fifty years hence branch railways and good roads giving access to the central mountains and great hotels there, such as they have now in Switzerland. -The Government might do much *to help the process along. WATER-POWER. " The utilisation of water-power in the streams -flowing down from the "ice cap of the mountain is another thing that, all being well, is sure to come for the transformation of the Main Trunk line. It would be possible in this way to supply power and light to all the Main Trunk towns and to run the hilly section of the railway itself by electricity- The harnessing of the bigger ■ streams, such as the Wanganui, Ongarue, Opura, Tangarakau, and Mokau, is another possibility of the next half- j century- The Mokau, in the Wairere falls, offers even now a great opportunity for a hydro-electric installation. About four miles from Aria and twenty odd from Te Kuiti, it leapß over a limestone ledge in three steps, falling in all I about 120 ft into a gorge below. It j looks a singularly happy proposition for hydro-electric engineering. With limestone and coal all about and Taranaki ironsand not far away, it should make for the manufacture of cheap carbide and electric steel. FRUIT-GROWING AND OTHER THINGS. Back in the broken papa region ot the Wanganui and its tributaries and further south in the Upper Wangaehu and Turakina, it may be that fruit will grow on the sunny sides of the sheltered deep valleys. The possibilities of this country certainly do not seem to ba exhausted by the mere pasturage of sheep and cattle. It is all a land of the future, with promise set in a golden haze. Who can tell what it will ' be fifty years hence? It may be a great manufacturing Tegion, wifh the rivers made navigable for the transport of goods and passengers. It may be a great agricultural country, with every bit of land put to the best uses. But one thing is certain, it will never be a worthless country, as pessimistic critics dolefully declared it would be when the procuress of the Main Trunk railway for a time hung in the balance. Whatever it may be, it will always produce abundance of wealth, where sixty years .before it produced nothing.